


Dayside Festival

by Rumoris



Category: South Park
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Established Relationship, Fluff, K2 Week 2020, M/M, Mentions of alcohol, Music Festival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25825258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumoris/pseuds/Rumoris
Summary: Agreeing to go to an expensive festival was never really among his plans. But once he was there, he had to admit that although the drinks were expensive, the music was great, the programs were colorful and most importantly, the company was bearable. He really had no reason to think that something is missing and yet...
Relationships: Kyle Broflovski/Kenny McCormick
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	Dayside Festival

Going to the music festival together with four of his best friends was something Kyle wouldn’t have dared to imagine back when he was a kid. First of all, because going anywhere with Cartman by his side was deemed to be hellish nightmare. Second of all, he just couldn’t imagine himself living in a tent and spending the whole week with his friends, with almost no connection to the world outside the festival grounds. But after two months of hesitation and making faces, he agreed to their plan and coughed up the price the entry ticket after Kenny successfully convinced him that the list of bands will make him forget the negative parts of the story and Cartman. Besides, it was not only about music but giving themselves a place to breathe and relax before jumping right back into the treadwheel on Monday. Or so he was told.

Before he had a chance to change his mind, Kyle quickly found himself in a technicolor forest of fabric in the great meadow next to Denver. Inside the walled up territory various music stores set up tents to get some extra money from merchandise and album sales, same went for food stalls that were lined up right next to each other inviting them with their overpriced hamburgers and fries. However, between the myriad of tents and colorful programs there was one. One program tent that kept his imagination busy for the past few days, to the point he completely got lost in his own headspace at a concert.

And there he was, circling around the tent for four days now. On his way to get water, he stopped to take a peek inside, but couldn't see much; on their way to the night's concerts he couldn't help but take a glance at it from the corner of his eyes, his fingers tightening around Kenny’s hand at the sight of other couples waltzing in and out with their group of friends. Almost all of them came out with two pieces of paper, one for each person and the whole process just filled Kyle's heart with unspeakable envy. 

If he did not have his infamous secondhand embarrassment pushing him back whenever he tried to get too close to the small booth set up next to the tent, he would’ve dragged Kenny with him already. But instead, he just talked himself down whenever the thought arose, bringing up every fabricated pexplanation he could find to avoid taking action and why he shouldn’t take a step forward and let himself do what he wanted.

Maybe if things went forward in their usual pace, Kyle would have sat through the entire festival without making a fool of himself. 

Maybe if Cartman stopped teasing him about the _chick_ cocktail he got for himself on accident, he wouldn’t have gone back to the bar to get a second round, bringing back a glass filled with orange substance.

“You know that the bigger glass won’t equal bigger dick, right?” Cartman snickered at him, feeling triumphant that his constant teasing finally brought the results he desired and once again, he managed to bait Kyle into something stupid. 

As Kyle started arguing, Kenny hesitantly pulled the straw to his side and took a sip from the drink, immediately making a face and hesitantly pushing it back to Kyle.

“I bet you won’t drink all of that,” Stan challenged him, holding onto his hypothetical manliness by being the only one who ordered beer. He was the super best friend who was supposed to keep Kyle away from trouble, but he was also terribly curious about what will happen if Kyle drinks something that made Kenny wince. 

“Just watch and learn,” Kyle scoffed at him, disregarding Kenny’s quiet warnings and the fingers that kept gripping into his tights under the table. 

Fortunately, it seemed that Kenny worried over nothing, as his memory kept perfect and clear track of everything that happened between the evening drinks and the concert. If someone asked, he could even list the bands that played at night. Maybe the order would be tad bit messed up, and he wouldn’t be able to list the songs, but that is beside the point. He even remembered when he briefly woke up at night only to push Kenny off of him and to slightly open the zipper on their tent when the stall, summer air started to become unbearable…

But apparently he either had false memories of the night, or his brain decided to give yesterday a selective memory deletion because he just couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was terribly off and things only seemed to get worse once he properly woke up. 

Over the years, he got used to Kenny being silent, only opening his mouth for short sentences, unless the conversation required him to do more than just to nod along. It was rare to see him get lost in his thoughts at eleven in the morning, let alone have him stare at his coffee in the plastic cup for so long without trying to seek any kind of physical contact with him. 

“Hangover?” he tried as he sat next to him, but Kenny only shook his head, his frown deepening as he gazed into the pitch-black drink.

“Maybe he is just realizing his mistakes about dating your Jew ass,” Cartman shrugged from his foldable camping chair. This seemed to earn the first visible reaction from Kenny as the youth glared daggers into his face.

“Or maybe he is thinking about punching you the next time you make a comment about the ass of his boyfriend,” Kenny muttered under his breath, but his anger disappeared almost immediately. 

“ _Kahl,_ do something about your boyfriend, he is getting aggressive like a wild opossum!”

“Why would I stop something that might have a positive impact on my life?” Kyle raised an eyebrow as he sat back on the red blanket that connected their tents. Cartman’s angry comments helped him to somewhat paddle his way back to reality, but his mind was adamant on solving what he had done that made Kenny act so strange. It had to do something with him. He just knew it!

“Cartman why the fuck do you need to start a war so early?” came a suffering groan from the dark blue camping tent next to theirs. Stan pushed his head out only to glance at the bright sunny weather, then quickly retreated into the darkness of his burrow. 

“Now that’s hangover,” Kenny noted with a tiny smile as he drank the last drops of his coffee. “When you are done with yours, do you want to come with me to wash the cups?”

Kyle felt his stomach drop at the question. “Sure.”

If Kenny wanted to stay alone with him, it meant that he was getting closer and closer to the point in the day where crucial information will be revealed about yesterday. Kyle still firmly believed that he was not drunk, but at this point he couldn’t deny that something must have happened or else Kenny wouldn't act so... off.

After downing his own drink and feeling the caffeine rush through his limbs, they collected Cartman’s ceramic mug for tea and he sheepishly followed Kenny away from their tents, feeling two pairs of eyes on his back till the moment they turned right and disappeared behind a row of scrubby trees.

Kyle’s brain sounded the alarms when Kenny reached for his free hand, and with reddening face he pulled him away from the road to the public tap. Without a word, they walked past other campers who were all trying to piece themselves together after yesterday’s party or just simply enjoyed the weather with their friends playing board games in the grass. He remembered the stalls they walked past, and his breath hitched when they finally stopped in front of the white tent. 

“No way...” Kyle muttered in disbelief as he looked at Kenny. The boy’s face was redder than when they left their little camp. The moment their eyes finally met, Kenny quickly looked at Cartman’s mug, pretending to read the gibberish words on its side. “But when? How? I didn’t accidentally get drunk, right?”

Kenny only shook his head. “No, you were sober the whole time. It actually came up at night…”

“At night...?” Kyle raised a brow, earning a weak nod. Around them friends and couples walked past to have their pictures taken in front of a makeshift gate. No matter how hard Kyle tried to recall the events of last night, his earliest memory was the small disruption at night. Indeed, before that there was a black splotch and it seemed Kenny picked up on his confusion, because the next moment he quietly decided to explain.

“When we got back you kept talking about what you want to do, aside from mentioning it several times how _fucking great_ the bands were,” He told him with a smile appearing on his lips as his ears slowly gained colour. “Before you fell asleep mid-sentence you told me about the wedding tent and how awesome it would be if we tried it out.”

Kyle felt like crying and laughing at the same time, and he desperately thought about letting go of Kenny’s hand only to pinch the bridge of his nose. 

“Wait, wait, wait. So what you are telling me, I blabbered about wanting to check out this tent and right after that I have fallen asleep?”

“Well... Yes. You kind of started telling me about an idea and poof, you were out cold. So if you are still interested… How about getting married here and now?... Fuck, this was not the most romantic way of asking it...”

It was Kyle’s turn to change several shades darker.

“No, it wasn’t. But are you sure? It won’t be official, and I’m my clothes don’t fit the occasion, and---” he stuttered, the mug shaking in his hand. 

“You could be dressed up as a clown, I’d still ask you the same,” Kenny shrugged. “It's a festival program. It’s just for fun, not a lifetime commitment. Besides, you can think of it was a PDA practice for the _real deal_.”

He laughed awkwardly as he pulled Kyle closer and gave him a peck on the lips before the other had a chance to ask him about the last part of the sentence. Sensing a new couple in her vicinity, hostess girl dressed in shorts and a tee wearing the festival’s logo stepped next to them ushering the boys towards the tent while she kept listing the possible extra features that they sneakily hid behind a paywall.

Apparently the free part of the event included a shortened wedding ceremony of their chosen religion or a fictional monologue written based on a set list of shows and books. In their indecisiveness decided to choose a fantasy setting, with the embroidered wedding robes– and capes and matching fake flower crowns. 

It was gaudy, it was embarrassing and definitely not how Kyle expected things to go in the famous wedding tent, but seeing Kenny messing around with the props and trying to come up with the worst possible combination of elven ears and two crowns, he couldn’t help but join him, throwing a third crown at the boy, while he decided to tap into the inner alchemist and pulled a white pointy hat on his head.

After thirty minutes of pictures, signing fake documents and sharing several kisses with some more dramatic variations to them, they were sitting on a bench, plastic cups and the mug formed a small tower next to them as they kept shaking their Polaroid pictures, one in each hand. 

Eventually the black rectangular picture started to gain colours, and an image formed in a frame decorated by green vines. Looking at it, Kyle couldn’t help but to let out a small chuckle.

“I always wanted to have a more romantic photo, just with the two of us,” he admitted under his breath as he pushed the picture under Kenny’s nose, “But Cartman’s horrified face in the background is definitely a nice bonus.” 

Probably for the first time in his life, he felt pretty damn happy about not being able to shut up. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well then let's start K2 week of 2020 with a fic that popped out of my head when every music festival was getting cancelled left and right. I wanted to create something that is more about what happens in the morning and daytime, than the actual festival and that's when the idea of all the various programs appeared. The wedding tent is actually quite common, while it's not official, unlike Vegas weddings but the paper looks nice and it is part of the fun! Altho I have to admit, the boys really took the idea of a a wedding tend and turned it into their own playground, because before I knew it, they turned it into a fantasy themed event...
> 
> The cocktail Kyle got in the end was Zombie! I refuse to believe that "chick" cocktails exist, that's a thing I once heard when I went out with friends... 
> 
> The main motivators behind the prompt were two Saint Motel songs. Preach and My type! Also This Side of Paradise by Coyote Theory.


End file.
